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CK2 Dev Diary #83 - God Wills It!

Greetings!

PDXCon is soon upon us, and we hope to see you there! During the event we will reveal the name and theme of the Expansion we’re working on, and after PDXCon is over we’ll have plenty of Dev Diaries that will delve deep into the new expansion features. For now though we’d like to present the main feature of the free patch that’ll accompany the Expansion!

It is time to don your armor and ready your steed, as the Vicar of Christ himself has declared that all who join in expelling the infidel from the Holy Land will have their sins absolved!

The Crusades are a very iconic part of the game, though one that has barely seen any change since the game was released 6 years ago. A lot of fantastic and interesting systems have been added to the game over the years, and we wanted this very central feature to feel as deep and interesting as any one of them.

The Catholic faith will no longer use the old Great Holy War system - instead they will use a new and improved system specifically tailored to both increase immersion and enhance the gameplay surrounding the crusades. This system is massive, and it might be hard for us to fit all of the information into this single DD, but we’ll give it our best shot!

We have specifically aimed to fix the issue where, unless you intend to win the crusade, there was no real reason for you as a player to participate except to get the ‘Crusader’ trait.

To accomplish this we’ve made Catholic crusades work in two phases; first there is a Preparation Phase, followed by the actual war. To communicate this properly we needed a new dedicated interface. Enter, the Crusade View:

CrusadeDD_PrepPhase.png

Holy shield, on the wall, which is the holiest city of them all?

When the pope decides that it's time for a new Crusade, he will send a call to the Catholic world for support. When he does you can access the Crusade View by clicking the Crusade Banner underneath your portrait.

In the Crusade View you will have access to a plethora of useful information, and you’ll be able to take actions to help the crusade or to alter its course. You will be able to see the Pope’s proposed recipient (if any) in the top left corner, and the target character and title in the top right. There will be a timer counting down to the date where the war will start. During this time, the following can be done:
  • Catholic rulers can pledge their military support to the crusade. When they do, they appear in the list of Pledged Participants. For every crusader that pledges, prestige, piety and artifacts are added to the War Chest. The religion being targeted by the crusade can ‘counter pledge’, and it’s the relative strength of these two sides that is shown as ‘Total Strength’ underneath their portraits. Pledged rulers will automatically be called into the war as it starts.
  • All Catholic rulers get the option of donating money to the War Chest in exchange for piety and opinion with the Pope. This money is then added to the War Chest, more on that later.
  • Crusaders who have pledged military support can add a beneficiary to the crusade. This character must be a dynasty member, and depending on your participation in the crusade they might be granted a title in the Crusader Kingdom should the crusade be successful. More on this later.
  • Players can pay piety to change the target character and/or title. This cost starts fairly low, but doubles each time to avoid spamming. This means that if you’d rather have a crusade target a scary infidel realm on your immediate border, you can make it happen if you’re pious enough!
  • Players can choose their ‘Stance’ on what they want to happen should they be the most participating crusader. More on this later.

If a Catholic ruler chooses to neither pledge to the crusade or donate money to the War Chest, the Pope might get very upset with them. Depending on the rulers tier and influence, this can range from a simple piety hit to an outright excommunication. Revoking your pledge also carries a similar penalty.

Regarding the War Chest - when the preparation phase is over, 20% of the money in the War Chest will be divided between the pledged Crusaders, in order to provide for their levies and fleets as they go to war. The rest is saved until the end of the Crusade, where it is used as rewards for the participants and to set up the Crusader Kingdom. The Crusader Kingdom will receive 10% of the War Chest in order to steel them against imminent counterattacks. The rest (including prestige, piety and artifacts) is given out to the Crusaders who participated in the crusade, in order to motivate you as the player to participate as much as you can - even if you don’t expect to win. To ensure that the top contributors don't take all of the War Chest rewards, any one participant can receive at most 20% of it. As the Catholic world tends to be rather… generous with their donations, this often translates into a lot of wealth! Beware though, if the crusade is lost the majority of the contents of the War Chest will be lost, and Christendom will be weaker for it...

When the Preparation Phase is over, the war begins and the Crusade View changes:
CrusadeDD_WarPhase.png

Note that the numbers are still WIP.

The Countdown Timer is replaced by the warscore and the name of the Crusade is updated, otherwise the functionality remains the same (except for being able to change the target, of course, at this point it’s too late for that).

If the Crusade is successful, what will happen depends on the top contributor’s stance. There are three stances; ‘Selfish’, ‘For my Beneficiary’ and ‘Comply with Papal Demands’. The AI will always choose to go with Papal Demands.
  • The ‘Selfish’ stance will see the top contributor take the lands for themselves. Doing this completely disqualifies them from the War Chest though, and is seen as impious by the Pope.
  • The ‘For my Beneficiary’ stance will see your beneficiary become King/Queen of the lands. While still not approved by the Pope, it’s not seen as impious, and you still qualify for (parts) of the War Chest. If the pope has chosen no recipient for the title, this is the default behaviour and carries no penalties.
  • The ‘Comply with Papal Demands’ stance simply sees whoever the Pope wishes to rule the lands become the King or Queen. If he has no opinion, it will go to the top contributor’s beneficiary.

In the old system, the title and all under it went to the winner of the crusade. You often saw France or the HRE own for example Jerusalem, which in all honesty was very boring, and more often than not only resulted in an inheritance mess. While a player can still choose to use the old system by choosing the ‘Selfish’ stance, the new default behaviour is completely different. Unless the Pope wishes to restore an existing King or Claimant (where the normal, old, behaviour will be used) a Crusader Kingdom will be set up:

CrusadeDD_JerusalemAllSetUp.png


A Crusader Kingdom is a multicultural kingdom made up of the beneficiaries of all participants. The top contributing participants will have their beneficiaries get higher titles in the target kingdom. To avoid the player gaming the system using inheritance, the Kingdom is always set up to disallow external inheritance - and the AI tends to choose beneficiaries that do not stand to inherit or are married to someone who might inherit.

If your beneficiary receives land in a Crusader Kingdom, your entire Dynasty will receive a monthly boon to piety until their death. In a future Dev Diary we will go into more detail regarding the importance of Piety in the Catholic sphere, but rest assured that it’s going to be more important to be seen as pious than it’s ever been before - making the boon from your beneficiary rather significant.

The new ruler of the Crusader State, in order to properly rule such a challenging realm, gets a trait appropriately named ‘Crusader King/Queen’ which confers a massive same religion opinion along with some other goodies.

And, for the finale, if your beneficiary is selected to be the King or Queen of the Kingdom - you have the option of switching over to them, taking control of the newly established Crusader Kingdom and leaving your old character behind (which is also part of the reason why you can only choose members of your own dynasty as beneficiaries). We believe that doing a thing such as this will provide the quintessential CK2 experience, where you have to both manage unruly vassals and defend against vengeful religious foes!

Stay tuned for future Dev Diaries, where we might go into detail on a few… special crusades.
 
Also random thought, but is it possible for a crusade to be cancelled before it even starts if the attackers are sufficiently weaker than the defenders? Say either because the attacking religion cannot muster a large enough force to attack the target or because the defenders commit too large a force against them?

Seems it hasn't been mentioned in the DD, but this is very much the case. If the Pope can't muster together 75% of the Defenders Strength, it is considered a failure and will be canceled before it begins.

1) When the current Crusader King/Queen dies will the heir/player get the trait as well to signify their ownership of a Crusader Kingdom?
2) Will the separate Crusader Duchies get that trait or not as they are only Dukes? Or are there more than 1 new unique crusader trait?
3) If there are 4 successful regular (non-special) crusades during a game will there be 4 people with the Crusader King/Queen trait?
4) It was stated that the Crusader Kingdom gets 10% of the warchest and 2 artifacts. Does the 10% include the additional artifact assigning as well or is it solely those 2 artifacts?
5) Will there be repeated/destroyed artifacts if I give my beneficiary artifacts prior to him/her becoming the Crusader King/Queen? Meaning if I give him a saints finger, a nail from the cross, and the holy prepuce will those new 2 artifacts have the potential to be worthless as they were randomly picked to be a nail and prepuce?
6) Will the Crusader Kingdom ever be allowed to be a Crusader Empire or will it just default into a regular empire with no special mechanics? (Forming Arabia or custom empire as Jerusalem for example)
7) What Crown Authority will the Crusader Kingdom start on? Low/Medium since all the vassals are Catholic/part of the same war?
8) Will these Crusader States have any events pop up after the crusades? Gameplay events such as increased revolt risk due to religious differences or just flavor events such as the Pope writing a letter to check in on your Holy Kingdom?
9) Tied to the above question, any special interactions or things you can do after being made Crusader King/Queen? Call for further invasion of Muslim lads? Petition help from your fellow Catholics or even the Orthodox/Coptic due to a Jihad/Holy War?

1. It is not inherited, so as soon as the original ruler dies, the trait disappears as well.
2. They will get the normal Crusader trait.
3. If all of the original owners still lived, yeah, though I highly doubt that would happen.
4. Solely those 2 artifacts. The artifact distribution is a bit different than the rest of the War Chest.
5. If I recall correctly, it should be rare, but possible. I don't think it would end up being an issue you'd see often.
6. Nothing to discuss yet on this one.
7. If you use Conclave, you will get Regulated inheritance and Late Feudal Administration, if you aren't you will get High Crown Authority.
8. There is currently no flavor events added post-Crusades for these states.
9. Same as 8.
 
I had just uninstalled the game yesterday... Looks like I will be gathering my multiplaying friends for a Crusade before too long :D
 
It's going to take about half an hour after release for someone to post a screenshot of a Crusade in which Christendom is gathered to put a horse on the throne of Jerusalem...
A horse, a horse! My Your kingdom for a my horse!
 
1. So the winner´s choosen one becomes "King/Queen of Crusader State of Jerusalem". How long will this be a crusader state? Is that tied to the special trait and the heir is instead "King/Queen of Kingdom of Jerusalem"?
2. How is the land divided? Does my choosen one geet a bigger part if participation is very different? IE, does outcome differ if I get partipication score of 50% and no 2 is 25% pr if I win only by a single pecent?
3. How many participants get a share? I mean, there can be hundreds, providing close to nothing.
4. What happens if my ruler dies in combat in the holy land? Same as today?
5. What happens if I´m low on Kinsmen/women?
 
1. So the winner´s choosen one becomes "King/Queen of Crusader State of Jerusalem". How long will this be a crusader state? Is that tied to the special trait and the heir is instead "King/Queen of Kingdom of Jerusalem"?
2. How is the land divided? Does my choosen one geet a bigger part if participation is very different? IE, does outcome differ if I get partipication score of 50% and no 2 is 25% pr if I win only by a single pecent?
3. How many participants get a share? I mean, there can be hundreds, providing close to nothing.
4. What happens if my ruler dies in combat in the holy land? Same as today?
5. What happens if I´m low on Kinsmen/women?

1. The Crusader Kingdom isn't functionally different to a normal Kingdom. Most of the effects happen the moment it is created (see refilled holdings, special trait for the King/Queen, removed holding penalties etc).
2. The land is divided based on participation score. Meaning the most participating Crusader have their Beneficiary receive the Kingdom, the second best probably have their Beneficiary get a Duchy, etc. So there is definitely value in being number 2 and 3 as well.
3. The War Chest will be divided up among everyone participating based on participation score, the Crusader Kingdom will be divided up until there is no more provinces left to divide among the participants.
4. Same as today.
5. If the ruler have no Beneficiary, they will functionally work like you are taking the Kingdom for yourself. So if you are low on kinsmen, that is potentially the outcome.
 
And maybe the Byzantine contributions to the Crusades can finally be recreated?
well historically it was more like Byzantium did their own Holy/De Jure/Claim Wars to take back their lost territory in Anatolia while the Catholics were wrecking shit in the Holy Land.
 
This can't apply to the Spanish rulers, we have evidence and references that many Popes actually denied their participation (they were very much invested to go crusading) and were told to focus on the Reconquista, will you do an exception to the Iberian peninsula regarding this penalty???
I agree. Spanish Catholic rulers should get an exception. It might even be extended a bit more. Catholic rulers fighting Muslims or Pagans should be able to get an exception.
 
1. The Crusader Kingdom isn't functionally different to a normal Kingdom. Most of the effects happen the moment it is created (see refilled holdings, special trait for the King/Queen, removed holding penalties etc).
2. The land is divided based on participation score. Meaning the most participating Crusader have their Beneficiary receive the Kingdom, the second best probably have their Beneficiary get a Duchy, etc. So there is definitely value in being number 2 and 3 as well.
3. The War Chest will be divided up among everyone participating based on participation score, the Crusader Kingdom will be divided up until there is no more provinces left to divide among the participants.
4. Same as today.
5. If the ruler have no Beneficiary, they will functionally work like you are taking the Kingdom for yourself. So if you are low on kinsmen, that is potentially the outcome.

1. My question was only regarding the name - did I get it correctly that it will be created as "Crusader State of" and not as "Kingdom of" and will it at some point be reverted to "Kingdom of"? :) Thanks for the other details!
2. I understund, you can allways expect one county only then, as long as there are more participants than counties in the target kingdom? If there are 5 de jure duchies in the target kingdom, am I gurantied to get a duchy for my choosen one of I end up top 6(where no 1 get the kingdom)?

The kingdom is ursurped, I understund, but how about duchies? What if the Emir of Jerusalem would have survived outside kingdom of jerusalem borders, is that title ururped and distirubuted? Is uncreated duchies inside the realm allways created?
 
Yes, we felt that some refinements on the feature were a bit overdue. The old system never managed to properly capture the political landscape we wanted for our simulation of the Crusader States. We hope that this rework will make it more engaging and fun to play with for everyone involved.
reparations at last
 
1. My question was only regarding the name - did I get it correctly that it will be created as "Crusader State of" and not as "Kingdom of" and will it at some point be reverted to "Kingdom of"? :) Thanks for the other details!
2. I understund, you can allways expect one county only then, as long as there are more participants than counties in the target kingdom? If there are 5 de jure duchies in the target kingdom, am I gurantied to get a duchy for my choosen one of I end up top 6(where no 1 get the kingdom)?

The kingdom is ursurped, I understund, but how about duchies? What if the Emir of Jerusalem would have survived outside kingdom of jerusalem borders, is that title ururped and distirubuted? Is uncreated duchies inside the realm allways created?

1. At the moment it is simply "Kingdom of".
2. If I understood your question correctly, then yes.
3. I believe they grab the Duchy title from the Emir in that specific case, if he is a vassal of the Crusade target, but he keeps the other titles outside of the borders. All Duchy titles should be created and distributed.
 
No, exception should be general. If your toptier title is in same empire dejure as the wartarget, there should be a exception.

EDIT: Whould be cool if pope could even press you as claimant for above situation!
IMHO there are other possible exceptions. The Spanish and Portuguese had their Reconquista, around the Baltic there were Northern Crusades against Pagans, basically their work was similar as the other Crusaders, just in a different ‘theatre’.
 
IMHO there are other possible exceptions. The Spanish and Portuguese had their Reconquista, around the Baltic there were Northern Crusades against Pagans, basically their work was similar as the other Crusaders, just in a different ‘theatre’.

That´s exactly what I am saying, isn't it :) No hardcoded exception for Iberia but instead a generic rule.
 
Looks sweet. What happens if I set my stance as selfish but I am not the top contributor or have no beneficiary. Say I am a king of france but only had enough contribution to get a duchy. Will I get the duchy for myself under my French kingdom? Or can you not be awarded it unless you have a suitable beneficiary selected?
 
Looks sweet. What happens if I set my stance as selfish but I am not the top contributor or have no beneficiary. Say I am a king of france but only had enough contribution to get a duchy. Will I get the duchy for myself under my French kingdom? Or can you not be awarded it unless you have a suitable beneficiary selected?

You will only be able to take it for yourself, if you are the top contributor.
 
Now the only question is, through subtle means, can one nudge the crusade towards a certain important city?
 
You will only be able to take it for yourself, if you are the top contributor.

Oh I missed that bit, makes sense that only top contributor can have a stance.

What happens if I have high contribution and no beneficiary, will I get more rewards to compensate for the fact that I cannot get any lands in the crusader Kingdom?
 
So does this mean that you risk losing artifacts by joining a crusade?

No? The worst case scenario is that you can get a copy of an artifact you already have, in very rare cases, but you shouldn't ever lose any artifacts by partaking in Crusades.

Oh I missed that bit, makes sense that only top contributor can have a stance.

What happens if I have high contribution and no beneficiary, will I get more rewards to compensate for the fact that I cannot get any lands in the crusader Kingdom?

Nope, you will just receive your share of the War Chest.